Uncle Lubin.

This ornament was selected by TD jnr many years ago as a gift for The Old Lady on the strength of its (probably accidental) similarity to Uncle Lubin, a favourite of his.

The character was created for a children's book by the cartoonist Edward Heath Robinson who was famous for his portrayals of fantastic machinery incorporating large quantities of knotted string. The book, "The Adventures of Uncle Lubin" goes down in history as containing the first cartoon incorporating a piece of the aforementioned knotted string, a part of the balloon Lubin constructs to hunt down the wicked bag bird (a pelican) which has stolen Baby Peter while Lubin was in loco parentis. Unfortunately, the balloon is punctured by the pointy bit on the new moon and Lubin has to make a parachute to return to earth.

As you will realise from the description, it is a realistic adventure story illustrating the principles of physics to the developing child.